Why oh why do vb apps use so much ram?!

[qpabani]

I have a form, borderstyle set to none, dimensions 5 pixels by 5, visiible = false, and it STILL uses 2mb+ of ram..

how can you get it to use less ram? for example, if i want no form at all, just an icon in the tray which will contain code, how can i do this?

[Cander]

I guess becuase it is loading the vb runtime into memory also.

[sebs]

to have no form, just put your code in your main in a module!

[JoshT]

VB uses COM, which needs to allocate space for itself. In my experience, initializing COM in a simple C++ app causes about 1.5 - 2 MB of extra RAM to used.

[qpabani]

when i added a module, removed the form, and used a module with submain and the code "msgbox test" - and this used 3.5 megs of ram. then i set it to do nothing.. and it used 2mb+ of ram in the fraction of a second it was open..

arrgh how can you stop it from using so much ram?!

[MidgetsBro]

What kind of computer are you running this program on that 2mb of ram is a lot?!!? Even when I had windows 3.1, I still ran with 64mb of ram, and 2 mb isn't much out of 64. Most people have 128 or 192 now-a-days.

[qpabani]

still.. i saw a MUCH better trayer program than the one i had created (the one to add apps to the tray) which was written in c++, took up 127k of ram and was using subclassing and everything.. i just want to know how i can build a vb app which does something like that and take <1 meg of ram to accomplish..

[MidgetsBro]

It's gotta be something to do with the VB runtimes or the way VB works. 2 MB sounds like the minimum amount of memory a VB program will use.

[MidgetsBro]

I just looked and I have a program called CounterAmp that I made in VB, but I didn't use any controls, it is all drawn with code, and it only takes 1.7mb of RAM. That's still a lot, but compared to programs like internet explorer that take 10+ megs, it's not that much.

[hellswraith]

Are you running it in the IDE? If so your running with p-code.

Did you compile to native code, or p-code? If you compile to p-code, the runtime is most definitely loaded because it acts as a interpreter. Native code is usually a little better in the ram department because it uses the runtime as a "true" dll file, not as an interpreter also.

I can't give you numbers, as i am not on a VB enabled machine right now. Try compiling it to native code, and running it outside of the ide, see if that improves performance.

[jim mcnamara]

I didn't read the other posts - mea culpa.

But - did you know that VB runs inside a virtual machine, just like java? The virtual machine takes up RAM, even with a zero size program (if there could be such a thing).

Every form, every control, every object you reference requires that the OS map memory into your process space to handle it.
You put 20 textboxes on a form and watch it crash....

[JoshT]

Does native code run in a VM, or just P-code? I was under the impression that native code calls functions from the vb runtime dll like like any Win32 program would call functions from any standard dll.

[hellswraith]

Josh T,
Look at my earlier reply in this thread....or.....the short answer, you have it right....

[Lord_Rat]

Also, turning off the option 'incremental building' can save alot of space.